Harvard professor to form poker strategic thinking societies
Wednesday 15th August 2007
A Harvard Law School Professor will announce the formation of a group with the aim of organising ‘poker strategic thinking societies’ at universities and secondary schools around the world using the game as an educational tool to teach everything from basic life skills to war games at military colleges.
Charles Nesson said that he would be announcing the formation of the Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society (GPSTS) in Singapore this Sunday during the State Of Play international conference.
He stated that GPSTS would offer workshops to secondary schools and community centres, particularly in underprivileged neighbourhoods, sponsor team poker matches between law, business and other graduate-level programs and conduct seminars and conferences exploring poker as a means of teaching strategic thinking and related public policy issues.
'Poker is one of the best metaphors for teaching life skills across a variety of disciplines,' said Nesson, a founder of Harvard's Berkman Center on Internet Law.
He said that GPSTS chapters would be organised at prominent universities on several continents, starting at Harvard, with the goal of organising championships in the game of team poker.
“GPSTS views poker as a game of skill that can be used as a teaching tool at all levels of academia and in secondary education,” said Nesson.“The concept is to use poker to teach basic life skills, strategic thinking, geopolitical analysis, risk assessment and money management. The goal is to create an open online curriculum centred on poker that will draw the brightest minds together, both within and outside of the conventional university setting, to promote open education and Internet democracy.”
